Repeating my comment on the Github PR, "I'm persuaded by your idea that min(), max(), nsmallest(), nlargest(), sorted(), and itertools.groupby() should ideally have the same API for key functions. Syncing of those APIs would be a minor improvement. As Serhiy pointed out, this does complicate the type signature a bit, but that is of small concern giving that the other four functions listed have already gone down this path."